Wu Shigong was completely unaware of the turmoil surrounding his beating of Yu Zilian in the capital. In fact, he had already forgotten the matter of beating Yu Zilian. What he wanted most now was
What I have to do is show my muscles to the ignorant merchants in the town.
One day, all the merchants in the town received a notice from Qianhu Station: Qianhu Station was going to conduct gun shooting training. However, because the venue of Qianhu Station was relatively small, Qianhu Station would place a boat on the river.
An empty boat with targets placed on it for musket shooting training.
In order to prevent accidental injuries, we hope that merchants’ boats will not approach the shooting training venue. Otherwise, you will be responsible for the consequences.
Before these merchants could react, Wu Shigong arranged a patrol and led the newly recruited soldiers to the river. After placing the empty boats and targets, he started shooting with muskets.
The place chosen by Wu Shigong is very mysterious. It is the only way for ships on the river to approach the pier. With the soldier's fire cannon fired, the ships on the river cannot reach the pier, and the ships on the pier cannot get out. After all, no one dares to
Go try and see if the fire cannon can really hit someone.
Now, these merchants are in a hurry. Now is the peak period before the end of the year, when goods come in and out. In a while, the river will freeze. These merchants gathered on the pier and watched Wu Shigong with his guards fully armed to protect him.
The soldiers in training were shooting, but no one dared to come forward to negotiate.
It was not until Yao Yuanwai got the news and rushed over. Seeing this situation, he came to Wu Shigong.
Yao Yuanwai, his beard trembling, shouted angrily at Wu Shigong: "Wu Qianhu, why are you shooting fire cannons on the river? Aren't you afraid that we will sue you for obstructing the passage of civilian ships?"
Wu Shigong glanced sideways at Yao Yuanwai and said calmly: "I am training soldiers on my own Qianhu Station. What does it matter to you? You want to sue me? Then you can sue me. It's really baffling.
.”
Member Yao was so reprimanded by Wu Shigong's words that he almost vomited blood. However, the issue of ownership of this land was still unclear at this moment.
Yao Yuanwai had no choice but to hold back his breath and asked in a low voice: "How long will Wu Qianhu have to train?"
"Of course, we will train until these soldiers have completely mastered the shooting of fire guns." Wu Shigong said confidently, "I estimate that by the time the training reaches the point where the river freezes, I will be almost there."
This is simply too much, this is naked blackmail. Yao Yuanwai doesn’t want to pay attention to Wu Shigong anymore. He wants to discuss it with the merchants later: Wu Shigong may not be shooting muskets on the river day and night. The worst is to wait until
At night, just light more lanterns and load and unload the cargo on the ship at night.
As if he knew what Yao Yuanwai was thinking, Wu Shigong said leisurely from the side: "From today until the end of the soldier training, this section of the river will be set as a military restricted area. If any ship enters, the ship will be detained and the goods will be detained."
It will be confiscated and the personnel will be imprisoned. Fellow villagers, if you don’t believe what I say, you can come and give it a try.”
At this time, these merchants were all anxious. They all gathered around and begged Wu Shigong one after another. After listening to Wu Shigong for a while, Wu Shigong seemed to be moved, and sighed and said: "I am just soft-hearted, forget it, I will do it later."
Let those ships come by. But there is a dock usage fee, five taels of silver per ship."
"Wow——", these merchants were in an uproar. They all thought in their hearts: "This new Wu Qianhu must be a little too dark."
But people under the roof had to lower their heads. First deal with the immediate difficulties. Some merchants bargained with Wu Shigong, hoping to pay less money.
Wu Shigong suddenly became angry, and he shouted angrily: "What do you think of the glorious army of the Ming Dynasty? Are you still bargaining with the army? Either you pay money to dock, or you don't pay money and just float on the river. You make your own choice. Ben
The officer is busy with military affairs, so I'll excuse you for now."
After saying that, Wu Shigong left some guards to maintain order, and asked Zheng Zhen to collect the dock usage fees, and then left.
"This Wu Qianhu is probably crazy about money." After Wu Shigong left, Yao Yuanwai said to the merchants surrounding him, "Let's just do what he said today. But the Ming Dynasty has
Where the king's law came from, I immediately went to my old parents and asked them to comment on this theory for us."
That Yao Yuanwai was very quick. In the afternoon of the same day, the Qi County Magistrate of this county sent two yamen servants to Wu Shigong to deliver a message: Ask Wu Qianhu to meet at the county yamen tomorrow morning. Qi County Magistrate has something to discuss with Wu Qianhu.
.
After receiving the letter from County Magistrate Qi, Wu Shigong smiled knowingly. He thought in his heart: "These merchants are really cheap. Only after beating them hurts will they know that they should talk to me obediently."
Magistrate Qi has been serving as magistrate in this county for five years, and he will be transferred next year. Magistrate Qi estimates that his evaluation in the Ministry of Personnel in the past few years has been good. As long as he is active, he will not be able to say for sure.
You can be promoted to prefect. Therefore, I don't want to cause unnecessary problems at this juncture.
Besides, in this county, the land dispute between Qianhusuo and local areas is a long-standing problem left over from history. Originally, this problem originated from a long time ago, and military households were in a weak position in the environment of the entire Ming Dynasty.
.So, this problem is not too prominent.
However, after the current Qianhu family was forced to commit suicide by Li Bingbeidao, the entire Henan officialdom became aware of this problem. Magistrate Qi wanted to finish his term peacefully and let his successor solve this problem.
In addition, although Wu Shigong's Qianhu Office is in this county, Qi County Magistrate cannot control any affairs of Qianhu Office at all. At most, he can issue orders to Qianhu Office in wartime. Therefore, Qi County Magistrate
I didn't want to accept this hot potato at all.
However, Yao Yuanwai is a prominent figure in the county, and many of the county magistrate's government affairs require the cooperation of Yao Yuanwai and other gentry in the county. In normal days, Yao Yuanwai is very filial to the county magistrate.
Therefore, when Yao Yuan came to Qi County Magistrate for help, Qi County Magistrate was embarrassed to refuse.
Therefore, when Magistrate Qi summoned Wu Shigong for a meeting, he mainly wanted to be a mediator. It would be best if Wu Shigong and Yao Yuan could discuss a satisfactory solution among themselves.
However, the talks between Wu Shigong and Yao Yuanwai and several other merchants almost collapsed at the beginning.
Yao Yuanwai did not agree with Wu Shigong charging any fees at all. In fact, among the seventy or eighty merchants in the town, Yao Yuanwai and the two dozen merchants engaged in shipping trade did not spend the fifteen taels of silver every year at all.
Keep the cost in mind.
But this is not the issue that Yao Yuanwai is thinking about. He is worried: If the land rental fee of the town is paid to Wu Shigong this time, on the one hand, it proves that the land in the town is owned by thousands of households; on the other hand, they
The gentry still occupies the farmland of Qianhusuo. Will they have to pay land rent to Qianhusuo in the future? Therefore, Yao Yuanwai's attitude is not to give in.
Seeing Yao Yuanwai's resolute attitude, Wu Shigong completely pretended to be crazy. He shouted at the county government office: "You have already killed one thousand households. Do you want to kill the second one? Anyway, that's it.
If you are going to die, I will perish with you."
Wu Shigong's words made Qi County Magistrate's scalp numb. Qi County Magistrate was not sure whether Wu Shigong, a household with 25,000 people, would really take the risk. Therefore, Qi County Magistrate hurriedly tried to persuade him and carried out arduous efforts.
Local mediation work.
In the end, merchants such as Wu Shigong and Yao Yuanwai finally reached an agreement. The content of the agreement is: Wu Shigong will not mention this fee or that fee. Yao Yuanwai will be responsible for integrating all merchants and paying Wu Shigong 750 per year.
A labor fee of ten taels of silver. Wu Shigong will not charge any additional fees from these merchants.
Wu Shigong was very satisfied with this agreement. In fact, Wu Shigong didn't care at all about the name of the fee. His main purpose was to receive money.
Although the cost of these seven hundred and fifty taels of silver was not much, Wu Shigong did not want to exploit the merchants in these small towns.
If violence is really used, more money may be collected. However, the business environment of the town will also be destroyed. This is actually not good for Wu Shigong.
Moreover, the gentry besides Yao Yuan were all local figures. As an outsider, it would not be good for Wu Shigong to push these locals into a hurry. After all, Wu Shigong wanted to use this place as his base.
However, Wu Shigong was satisfied, but Yao Yuanwai was not. When leaving the county government, Yao Yuanwai complained to the county magistrate: "It's difficult to do business in the town. The county has to collect money from the stalls, and now it's
To pay labor and military expenses, even those green-skinned scoundrels have to extort some."
Upon hearing this question, County Magistrate Qi had an expression on his face, but Wu Shigong took it seriously.
After returning to the town, Wu Shigong called for Yao Yuanwai and asked him to talk about the situation of the green-skinned scoundrels in the town.
It turns out that with the prosperity of this town, there are more and more young gangsters in the town. Some of them even form a group to collect protection fees from those merchants. If any merchant fails to pay, they will go and cause trouble.
.In order to avoid trouble, all merchants also paid protection fees to settle the matter.
Wu Shigong didn't say much and asked Yao Yuanwai to report the list of these green-skinned scoundrels. He also asked Yao Yuanwai to arrange for a few people who were familiar with the situation in the town to lead the way and dispatch soldiers to arrest all these green-skinned scoundrels.
After catching these people, Wu Shigong took them to the town for a parade and asked them to express their repentance in front of everyone. One of the green skinned people was stubborn and refused to speak. Wu Shigong had him beaten to death on the spot. The other green skinned people were beaten to death on the spot.
The scoundrel immediately obeyed.
After these green-skinned scoundrels repented, Wu Shigong escorted them all to Qianhusuo Fortress to do hard labor. Wu Shigong's place also happened to be short of manpower to work.
Wu Shigong's behavior shocked these merchants, and also made these merchants look at Wu Shigong with admiration. They all thought: Although Wu Qianhu is a bit ruthless in asking for money, he is not a person who doesn't do things.